CAPERA
(Cáparra) Cáceres, Spain.
A Roman tributary city of the province of Lusitania (
Plin.
4.118) in the N environs of Plasencia. Frequently cited
in inscriptions (
CIL II, 806, 810, 812, 813) and by Ptolemy (2.5.7), and located on the road from Emerita to
Helmantica (
Antonine Itinerary 433.7).
The city was ca. 16 ha in area and its walls were probably built in the Tetrarchic period. It had a circus, not
excavated; a partially excavated theater, a temple of the
Antonine period dedicated to Jupiter and another temple,
both of which have been excavated. The temples stood
in the forum, as did another building with a facade containing three doors; the central one has a stairway. In
front of it is a four-way arch of the period of Trajan,
built by a private citizen and decorated on its N side
with equestrian statues, now lost. From Cáparra come a
togate statue of the Julio-Claudian period, now preserved
at the site, a portrait of Tiberius at about the age of 40,
a portrait of Antoninus Pius, and one of the period of
Gallienus, all kept in the palace of the Duke of Arión
in Plasencia.
The numerous inscriptions found here are preserved in
Oliva de Plasencia and in Plasencia. One of them is dedicated to the native goddess Trebaruna and dates from
the end of the 1st c. There are also milestones of Trajan
(
CIL II, 4662) and Alexander Severus (
CIL II, 4660),
and several stelai of private citizens from the end of
the Antonine period or the Severan period (
CIL II,
818-21, 825, 829, 847). The excavations have produced
much sub-Gallic terra sigillata of the Flavian period,
Hispanic terra sigillata of the period of Trajan, and
glass of the 1st c. The 1st c. necropolis has yielded
glass of the 1st c. and silver cups, now in the Archaeological Museum of Cáceres.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. M. Blázquez,
Cáparra I-III (1965-68)
MPI; A. García y Bellido, “El Tetrapylon de Capera (Cáparra, Caceres),”
ArchEspArq 45-47 (1972-74) 45ff.
J. M. BLÁZQUEZ
